We are moving!!

At Reflex we've got a lot to look forward to in the New Year. Not only have we got some fantastic meetings lined up with some great speakers & Practical nights but there's the move as well.

From

January the 5th

we will be meeting at

St. Anne's School Hall

(map)

It's just a few minutes walk down the road from the Langton so there's no excuse that we've moved too far.

If you get that new camera for Christmas and want to improve your photography then come along and see if we're the club for you. 

If your wondering why we're moving then there's a very simple reason. We outgrew the room! Over the last two years we have gone from 15 members to just under 60! It's been hard work but well worth it. Our members are some of the friendliest and helpful people you could hope to meet. They are Men & Women of all shapes, ages and from all walks of life. There are people that have only just picked up a camera to those that have been taking pictures for a very long time. Also we don't care what you use to take your pictures. It can be an old Kodak from the 70's or the most modern expensive digital camera on the market. We're not camera snobs.

After all it's not the Camera but the picture that counts.

ROC Round 2 Results

Below are the winning images from Round 2 of our Open Competition. There are quite a few gaps in the print section as several people haven’t bothered to send me digital copies of their prints.

 

1st Place Digital Projected Image Native by Angi Nelson	1st Place Print’s Sparkman by Dan Thomas
2nd Place Digital Projected Image Simian Misery by Hanneke Ter Veen	2nd Place Print Section Snap judgement Sian Perry
	Still have not sent me a digital version of the image.
3rd Place Digital Projected Image 3 Pepper Splash by Barrie Tovey	3rd Place Print Section A Chat in the Sun by Arthur Belton
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Valentines Bridge by Angi Nelson	Highly Commended Print Section Jay & Ben by Ian Coombs
	Hasn’t sent me a digital version or a link to the image
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image Early Morning Mist by Richard Johnson	Highly Commended Print Section Lasso Spin by Richard Price
Highly Commended Digital Projected Image I’ll Be Back by Geoff Morgan	Highly Commended Print Section Sunflower By Barrie Tovey
	Hasn’t sent me a digital version or a link to the image
	Commended Print Section Ultra Violet by Nathan Williams
	Hasn’t sent me a digital version or even a link to his image
	Commended Print Section Wild Wild Wet by Sian Perry
	Hasn’t sent me a digital version or even a link to her image.

Frogs, Snakes & Light Painting

We had a bit of a gap in our programme as our scheduled speaker had to cancel. Luckily for us club members Angi Nelson & Myk Garton offered to fill it for us. So instead of having to sit quietly and listen & look at someone else’s images we had a practical night.

Now practical nights can be a bit of a hit or miss affair. Sometimes we don’t get many people attending. Other times we get nearly every club member turn up. This Thursday was definitely one of  those times that nearly everyone turned up! Angi supplied us with various Frogs, Snakes & Reptiles plus a load of props & studio lights whilst Myk took charge of the Light Painting side of things.

After setting up the tables, props & animals Angi and her daughter with the aid of Richard Price gave those that wanted to stay inside and take images of the animals advice and help with the settings on their camera’s if they wanted or needed it.

Whilst all that was happening Myk Garton & Kevin Spiers took a group of members to the park across the road so they could create some Light Painting Images.

If your interested in seeing more images created on Thursday night then you can go to our Flickr Group where they are gradually being added by club members.

Frog Image copyright Michelle Lou. Light Painting Image copyright AJA Photography

Contrasting views

If you were at last nights talk by Andy Beel you may of just noticed a smile appear on my face when just after he started talking he made a massive sweeping statement that nearly made me shout “YES”!.

“With digital it’s not just what you do in the camera.

What you do with the file afterwards is just as, if not more important!”

 

I should imagine that quite a few of you that used to shoot film probably turned off at that point and got all nostalgic about how digital isn’t really photography and there isn’t any skill to it anymore. I’m sorry I just don’t agree with you. Well kind of. Digital photography is a totally different skill set to film photography. But then again it all depends on how you take your pictures. If you shoot JPG and only do a little or no editing on the computer afterwards then you’ll find that it’s more like traditional film photography where you need to get as much, if not all of it right in the camera. Whereas if you shoot in raw then I believe you should be aiming to purposely shoot for a fairly flat image that retains as much detail across the whole of the picture from the darkest shadow to the whitest white. Because your going to edit it on your computer. You are going to choose where the brightest highlights and the deepest, darkest blacks are going to be. Everything in that image is yours to do with as you will. Which is obviously a totally different way of seeing photography. Which is better? I can’t answer that but I know which is best for me. If you haven’t figured out which you prefer yet then just give both ways a go. Experiment & see just how long it takes you to get bored sat in front of the computer. If it’s only a few minutes then maybe you need to re evaluate the way you take your images and go back to shooting JPG. There’s no shame in that. It’s only stuck up self righteous buffoons (there’s a good word I haven’t seen used in ages) that will tell you otherwise.

 

Oh yeah I was talking about Andy wasn’t I. Sorry I get distracted easi………

 

Andy talked quite a bit about curves and custom curves so I thought I would give you a couple of links. That way if you wanted to you could have a bit of a read about them. If you want to discover more about Custom Curves or just find out some background on Curves you can follow either of those links. Yes they both use Lightroom to demonstrate it but you can replicate it in virtually any piece of editing software that has curves.

Andy Beel

This week see’s Andy Beel presenting a talk entitled “Marvellous Monochrome”

Marvellous Monochrome is a talk that has inspired black and white photographers around the country. This interactive print talk gives the audience the benefit of asking questions as the work is presented and understanding the working practice of a successful monochrome photographer.  Andy Beel FRPS is a Fotospeed sponsored lecturer and Workshop Leader.

Everything was going really well, until the splash….

We started the day at Woodchester Mansion which is an unfinished Gothic style mansion. A great place inside and some wonderful grounds to walk around and take pictures. The front of the mansion is mostly complete but unfortunately they seemed to think that the addition of a huge, white, 30 foot long marquee outside the entrance would be a good idea. That kind of ruined the chances of getting any good shots of the house as the back was covered in scaffolding and you could see the marquee from the side of the house as well. Cloning things out from between tree branches isn’t my idea of fun so I quickly dismissed even taking a shot.

I had a nice long walk around the Orange route with Rich as we were going to find the boathouse and see if we could get a decent shot or two of it. As we were walking down from the house we bumped into Christine and found that her day wasn’t going to well. She’d removed the SD card from her camera the night before for some reason and had forgotten to replace it. So no pictures for her and a totally wasted trip out. As we continued on the Orange route we kind of missed a turn when a couple of cows decided to object to our presence. Which led to us taking a two mile round trip around a couple of lakes instead of only having to walk about 500 yards from the house to the boathouse! Next time I’m definitely bringing a jar of mustard to threaten the cows with.

When we got back to the mansion to our dismay the tea room had already shut and we were forced to endure a dry wait for the minibus to take us back up to the car park. The less said about that journey the better if only for the fact I want to forget that at one point the van was leaning over at 45 degrees when the driver had to reverse and went up on the bank. When we got up to the car park we found Myk & Angi waiting for us. It seemed that everyone else had decided to call it a day and gone home. We were also treated to a great display from the local Glider club as the flight path in to land went directly above the car park.

We all headed, literally across the road to the car park at Coaley Peak, which is a popular hang gliding spot. After capturing a few shots of the sunset we moved up to a more secluded part of the picnic area to do a little bit of light painting. That went really well but it seems we won’t be buying our wire wool at B&Q again as it lasted all of about 10 seconds once it was lit. After a little bit of discussion we decided to head through Dursley, via a fantastic fish & chip shop, to Purton Hulks. Where the plan was to go and do some light painting down amongst the decaying hulls of the boats. We arrived and promptly set off down the towpath to find a suitable spot. Stopping at one of the Hulks we set up and had a bit of fun with lasers, sparklers and various kid’s toys! If you’ve had a go at light painting before you know what I mean. We moved on again to another hulk and created some images  there. Then we had a great idea. Lets go back to the car park and spin some orbs & wool spin off the bridge over the canal! Great, what could possibly go wrong? So we start to set up and Angi decides to go down the tow path a little and try a different angle towards the bridge. She spots some steps going down to what, in the moonlight, looks like a solid piece of concrete. Unfortunately it was just algae covered water! Splash in she went, camera, tripod and mobile phone. Right up to her neck! Now on the bridge Rich was heard to say, bloody hell Angi you’ve scared the birds and spoilt the reflections! Myk jokingly said “It’s only Angie falling in”. Then we heard a HELP! And it was “Oh shit she has!”. Rich & Myk helped her out and I got my camera (I can’t see anything wrong with my priorities). As you can see from the picture she tried to take half the canal home in her shoe.

Practical Night

The practical night last night seemed to be a success. After splitting into two groups (outdoor and indoor) we set about demonstrating some light painting techniques. Light painting has been done for many years even before the digital age but it is now being taken to the next level with some fantastic images being created.Last night was about showing what fun it can be and how it can add a whole new dimension to taking pictures. Not only did members get a privileged glimpse at some of the tools used to create shapes such as orbs, domes, double domes and other effects, but also participate in creating images.Whether you were outside spinning wire wool or indoors making a man-o-fire, everyone seemed to enjoy it.

 

The priceless thing for me was after spinning the first orb, the first time the image appears on the back of the camera and you hear a “Wow” from nearly everyone. Great.

This was written by Richard Price but he had a bit of trouble posting it.
I’d like to add a great big thank you to Richard Price, Kevin Spiers, Myk Garton and everyone else who helped set this fantastic evening up. I was gutted to miss it but I’m really glad it was such a success. If I missed you off the names that helped I’m sorry and if you really want me to add you to it just let me know.

R.O.C. Round 1 Results

There were some fantastic images entered for Round 1 of our Open Competition. Thanks to everyone that entered and a special thank you to Matt Roach for his excellent judging and taking the time to go through all the entries & giving good constructive comments on each and every one. Especially as there were so many of them. If you want to see some of Matt’s photography then you can visit his Flickr ‘stream by going here.

All the winners are shown below. As usual clicking on the pictures should take you to that picture on the persons Flickr ‘stream. If they don’t have a Flickr account then it takes you to that picture on the clubs Flickr ‘stream. Clicking on their name will either take you to their Flickr ‘stream or their website, if they have one.

1st Place Print: Fairy Fireworks by Rich Price	1st Place DPI: A Couple of Couples by Mark Stone
2nd Place Print: Heading Home by Ruth Doyle	2nd Place DPI: Carnival Joy by Simon Xu
3rd Place Print: Brave heart by Ian Coombs	3rd Place DPI: Flowers by Adrian Cook
Highly Commended Print: Waterfall by Antony Beezer	Highly Commended DPI: Relaxing in the Sun by David Jones
Highly Commended Print: Sharing by Julie Coombs	Highly Commended DPI: Shelter from the Rain by David Jones
Highly Commended Print: I only have eyes for you by Theresa Driscoll	Highly Commended DPI: Smith & Son by Eddie House
Highly Commended Print: Going Alone by Nathan Williams	Highly Commended DPI: Occupation by Ian Coombs
Unfortunately I do not currently have a digital version of the image.
Highly Commended Print: Sit and Stay by Alison Davies

 

 

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to everyone that took part.

Nervous yet?

If you’ve not been with the club for long then this coming Thursday will probably be a new experience for you. We had sixty nine digital images entered for Round 1 of the competition. That’s the most we’ve ever had. Plus we also had about twenty five prints submitted. Twenty three of you decided to enter the digital part of the competition. I believe I’m right in saying that’s more than the clubs total membership was 3 - 4 years ago!

Photo by Louise Iddon.
entered in
Round 1 last year.

If this is your first time entering the R.O.C. (Reflex Open Competition) then let me give you a bit of advice for when your sat there listening to the judge on Thursday.

Don’t take anything he says personally. 

He’s not saying your a bad person or that you suck at photography. He’s giving his opinion on the photograph in front of him. Most of them give good advice and suggestions. Listen to what they say. Not just about your images. But for all the photographs. If their a good judge you’ll get consistent and helpful advice. You might not agree with what they say, well actually it’s guaranteed that you won’t agree with everything they say, but try to listen impartially to the comments. It can be really hard to take criticism, even if it is constructive, but it can give you some amazing insights into how you perceive your own, and other peoples,  photograph's.

If you’ve not entered then my advice to you is to sit where you can see the faces of those that have. You’ll probably get to see everything from happy smiling faces to looks of incredulous amazement that anyone would think their image is anything less than perfect.

No matter if you’ve entered or not you should turn up, sit down and enjoy the images. You can choose to ignore everything the judge says or hang on their every word. It’s up to you. Just don’t let anything that’s said put you off entering in the future.  After all it’s your photograph and as long as you like it, nothing else matters.

Open your eyes

Last nights meeting was superb. Not only did we get to see some fantastic photography by Simon Caplan but there was literally “no room at the inn!”.

Simon got the evening off to a great start by explaining just what he hopes to achieve when he takes a photograph but instead of trying to make it sound all arty and full of technobabble he did it in an easy to follow and uncomplicated way. The words were punctuated by some wonderful images which when they appeared on the screen made you stop, look and then think “hang on a minute. I’ve seen that a million times! Why didn’t I take that photograph?”. His images are full of the little details, symmetry and colours that hundreds of people will walk past every single day and not even notice. It really does make you wonder how you could be so blind, How you’ve never really looked at your surroundings.

I’ve actually had emails from a few club members saying how much they enjoyed the evening. That’s never happened before, so I can say if you get the chance, take a look at his work and listen to what he has to say.

Just a quick note about the room. We are aware of the problems we are having at the moment and are exploring our options.

Simon Caplan

Out of the Blue © Simon Caplan

This weeks guest speaker is Simon Caplan with a presentation called “The Extraordinary Ordinary” how photography can discover hidden beauty in the urban envirionment. Simons recently had an exhibition at the YHA in Bristol’s Harbourside area and I’ve been on a few walks around the Harbourside with him and other Bristol Flickr Group members. It’ll be an evening of great photography and I can promise you’ll have walked past where he’s taken several of his photographs and you won’t have even seen what he’s taken a picture of.

Dunkirk and Fortress Europe

Back from our tour of Belgium and France, 4 intrepid Reflex members with their 4 compardres find themselves exhausted from a full itinerary but keen for more. Moved from some of the locations and stories that accompany them yet awe struck by the scale of the formidable enemy, we find ourselves with mixed emotions. There are so many ways that the war could have panned out but to see how close Germany were to the total annihilation of England with its V weapon projects is very humbling. Along with this the "miracle" of Dunkirk and its evacuation is now understood and it's clear it was certainly a "miracle" in more ways than the evacuation alone.

Ian, Barrie, Keith and myself all thoroughly enjoyed the trip along with the non members that joined us. With days full of touring various locations the evening were packed full of food, drink and a good laugh. We conducted ourselves with the utmost "promptitude" and "clarity" and we even learned a bit about "wenching". Ian scored 8/10 for his colouring at a contemporary restaurant even though the waitress had no idea what we were on about.

I'm afraid there may be things written here that are meaningless unless you were there and you may have no idea what I am on about, but all will be revealed on 9th February when we have our Dunkirk evening.

Guest Speaker: John Hoskins

This Thursday we have a talk from John Hoskins covering the last twenty or so years of Club Photography. Starting in the Darkroom and following his transition to digital. His early failures, those that have survived and those he’s recently had some success with. It should be a great talk and John would love a bit of audience participation, so he’s open to questions & comments during the talk. Although that doesn’t mean you can have a full blown conversation with the person sitting next to you. If you’d like to see some of John’s work before Thursday then just follow this link to his Flickr ‘stream.

Mpix Results

I’m pleased to say Barrie Tovey & Ian Coombs both had acceptances into the Mpix Competition this year. Barrie had two pictures accepted, Red Kite Stoop and Torso. Whilst Ian had one acceptance called “Well I Like It”. But it meant he’s managed a life long ambition of having a rat picture actually get into an exhibition.

 

Red Kite Stoop, Barrie Tovey	Well I Like It, Ian Coombs
Torso, Barrie Tovey

Debbie Young

Last night we had a great talk by Debbie Young. Despite some technical problems (the laptop is currently in the middle of the road on fire after being doused in petrol!) it went well. It was great to see some of the equipment she used in her underwater photography and I know quite a few of you enjoyed looking at her photographs especially the street photography.

I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Debbie for coming along and giving us a great presentation.

Guest Speaker, Debbie Young

I have an apology to make to Debbie Young and whoever did take the photograph that was up here. it seems somehow a couple of emails have been mixed up and the wrong information was being shown here. I'm really sorry for the mix up and am trying to find Debbie's email with her image that she gave permission for us to use on the Blog.
At this weeks meeting we have a guest speaker, Debbie Young.  If you want to see some more of her work before Thursday then you can visit her Flickr site.

Welcome to Reflex

The new season is just about to start. This Thursday the 1st September is the start of the new club season for us. Normally we would of had a break during the summer. But this year we gave all of our members the chance to take part in our 13 Weeks of Summer photography course. Now that course is over and we’re gearing up for a fantastic season of Guest Speakers, practical nights, competitions and photography. So if you’ve been thinking of joining a photography club or just want to find somewhere that can give you help & advice from friendly people who aren’t out to sale you anything come along to one of our Thursday night meetings. You’ll be made to feel welcome and we don’t care what camera you use or your photographic abilities. The only thing we insist is that you enjoy taking photographs.

If you want to find out more then visit our website. Where you can find out more information.

12 Months with Reflex

 

If you were there at last weeks meeting not only did you get a surprise when you walked through the door into the room you would of heard Kevin talk about something we would love to get you involved in. That something is what we’re going to call 12 Months with Reflex.

The plan is to arrange a day out taking photographs once a month with club members. Why are we making a bit of a fuss about it? Because we want you to get involved. Not just by coming along to take pictures but by helping to organise the trips. We would like 12 of you to take one step forward and volunteer to organise one of the trips each month. It’s not difficult really. All you have to do is say where you want to go and take photographs. Easy isn’t it! Pick a month and a date, pick a location then just tell everyone that’s where and when we’re going. The we’re not looking for highly organised coach trips or anything like that. Just somewhere that you can wander around and take pictures.

If you need inspiration you can take a look at the Bristol Flickr Walk Group to see some of the photographs that have been taken when a group of photographers from the Bristol Area, who are all on Flickr, have got together and wandered around taking pictures. Or you can look at this thread in our Flickr Group that lists lots of places you could use as your location.

If you feel up to the challenge then let Mark or Kevin know on a Thursday night or you can email Mark at the usual club address.

Dropbox

If you keep seeing me mention Dropbox and are wondering just what it is then now's your chance to find out. Dropbox is quite simply one of the most useful bits of free software that the club uses. It makes the job of collecting pictures & files from all of you really easy. Here's a step by step guide on how to get it set up.

• use this link to visit the Dropbox website, download their software and register on the website. If it's been a while since you installed their software then go and download & install it again, they've released a few new versions lately that fix a few bugs.
• Install their software. Go on it doesn't hurt. Once installed you should see a Dropbox folder on your desktop
• Email me to let me know you've installed it. Please make sure you let me know the email address you used to sign up to their website.
• You'll get an email asking you to join a "Shared Folder". The folder will be called something like "Reflex Entries Your Name". Please accept the invite.
• Once you've accepted the invite you should see the shared folder INSIDE of your Dropbox folder (the Dropbox folder is on your desktop if you didn't change it's location when you installed the software)
• That's the hard part done. See I told you it was pretty painless!
• From now on whenever you want to send pictures or files into the club all you need to do is put them inside the SHARED FOLDER.
• When you want to send in pictures just put them inside the shared folder. You can also create more folders inside the shared folder if you need to.
• If your sending in pictures just leave your PC switched on for a few minutes so that it has a chance to upload the files. (If the pictures are sized for our competitions then it will only take a few seconds for them to upload. Larger files will, obviously, take longer to upload)
• That's it. You don't have to worry about Dropbox anymore it should all run smoothly and without you needing to do anything else.
• Another useful thing is that by having Dropbox installed if the club needs to send you a picture or file it will also work that way as well.

Deliberately mess it up.

If you came along to last nights meeting you would of been sat there bored, listening to me tell you how to edit your photographs, but wait a minute. I didn’t tell you how to do it. I showed you how I would edit three of my pictures and hopefully started you thinking what you could do to your own work to make it stand out a little.  I didn’t want any of you going away from last nights meeting thinking you had to do exactly what I said. I desperately wanted you NOT to do that and I really hope I succeeded.

I honestly think that everyone should take the pictures they want and edit them (or not) however they want to. They are after all your pictures. But I also think that if you do want to process your pictures you should try and make them the best they could be. If no one else likes what you’ve done to a picture, who cares! As long as your happy with it that’s what counts. But you have to admit it’s nice when someone tells you they like what you’ve created.

You may take something, look at it on the back of the camera and think “well that’s crap”, but I hope that the last two weeks have shown you that no matter how bad it looks on the camera screen it can be turned into a good picture with just a little bit of work. Now that’s not to say that you shouldn’t try and take the best photograph possible and get as much as possible right in camera, but if something goes wrong or you forget to change a setting because your in a hurry then its not the end of the world.

If I can create the picture on the right from the total mess on the left there’s no reason you can’t either! I guess what I’m trying to get you to understand is don’t be afraid to try doing something different when your editing your pictures. See what you can get out of the ones you think are beyond hope. You never know what you’ll get.

David Waters

 
It’s with great sadness that I have to announce the death of David Waters.

David passed away on Wednesday morning after a short illness. He had a great sense of humour and was always willing to help others and give good, honest critique of anyone's photographs. Which, unfortunately, is a rare trait these days.

David's funeral will be held on
Thursday 28th, 1600 Hrs @ Westerleigh Crematorium (map)

Our thoughts and deepest sympathy go out to Theresa and the rest of his friends & family.

Oh I do like to be beside the sea side

On Saturday an intrepid bunch of adventurers, well six of us, went to Weston Super Mare for a stroll along the sea front and to take pictures. It was a camera club outing but it seemed that most of the club decided it wasn’t for them. Which was a shame because the sun was out and the only bad thing was the wind. Although that created a few good photo opportunities and I’m still annoyed that when the wave broke over the sea wall none of us had our camera’s pointed at the cyclist that got soaked.
We all met at the Pier for six o’clock (at least those of us that could tell the time did, mentioning no names, Kevin.) and decided to go along it and see what we could find. After dodging a van and a train, whilst walking along the pier, we got to the far end and wondered if we were going to get blown off it was so windy. We went inside for a bit and then went for some fish & chips. Barrie ordered his food, got a coffee and walked straight past the till only for the girl to come running after him as he hadn’t paid for any of it!
After the meal we strolled along the seafront. Nearly making it to the old Knightstone pier. If you want to know why we didn’t go all the way to the old pier keep an eye on the pictures in the Flickr group pool and you’ll see that we would have had to time it just right to get past a particularly wet section of the footpath. The waves were constantly breaking over the sea wall at one of the narrowest points of the pathway and we all chickened out. Because of the wind we decided to abandon our plans for a bit of Beach light painting and head home.

13 Weeks of Summer, Processing your Photographs

We’ve just finished the first half of our 13 Weeks of Summer course. That’s all the camera and picture taking done. Now we’re about to embark on the mysterious and secretive art of Processing and Editing your pictures. This is where quite a lot of people get stuck. They put their photographs on the computer and just sit there staring at the screen wondering what to do next. To get us started we asked you all what software you used to edit your pictures and I’m glad to say not a single person said Microsoft Paint! So armed with our list of software we are going to attempt the impossible and try to give you all a taste of how you can edit a picture in most if not all of the editing suites.

For next week all you need to bring along is yourself, a notepad & pen and make sure your brains are plugged in as, unfortunately, it’s going to be more talking than doing for the first week. We’ll be starting at the basics with how to take your pictures off of your camera and put them onto your computer. Also the age old argument of RAW vs. JPG will get an airing. There’s lots of other subjects being covered on Thursday including, workflow, suggestions on file structure, colour space, metadata and keywords.

Don’t worry if you think it’s all going to be technical and far too complicated to understand. It will be explained in easy to understand English and not Technobabble!

Our Newsletter

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been testing out a new style newsletter. A few of our subscribers volunteered to receive the new version and give me feedback on it. It’s now very close to coming out of testing and taking the place of the old text based version. In preparation for this there is now a new page on this Blog that you can use to subscribe to it if you aren’t already. If you look to the left you can see the link to that page called “Sign up to our Newsletter”.

From now on you don’t need to be a member of Reflex Camera Club to receive it. Anyone can subscribe, although there may be editions that you won’t receive if your not a club member. You’ll also find that by changing to this new style we will now be complying with Anti-spam laws from various countries around the world.

What’s different? I’ll be able to include lots more pictures, video’s and information. So instead of just reading about it and having to click on a link to see a poster or picture that’s relevant to the writing, you’ll be able to see them right inside the newsletter. When you get the first issue you may find that the pictures aren’t showing and you just have a bit of text instead of a picture, if that happens you need to add the address the newsletter is sent from to your allowed list. In a lot of email programmes, including web based email, you will see something that asks if you want to allow pictures to be shown from our email address. Please click allow, yes or always allow. Whichever of those options it gives you.

About time…

I’ve been a bit lax in updating the Blog the past few weeks and I’m sorry about that although it’s mainly been due to all the behind the scene’s stuff that’s going on with the club at the moment. We’ve got the 13 weeks of Summer course that we’re running. I’m trying out a new way of doing the newsletter which does involve more effort in putting it together, but the end result is so much easier to read and pleasing to the eye. Plus there are one or two other things that I won’t bore you with.

Anyway we’re up to week 5 of our 13 Weeks of Summer course. This week you get to find out all about the mysterious but amazingly simple Histogram. Simple? Yes once it’s explained and you realise that it really is that easy to understand you’ll never be confused by it again. We also get stuck into the various Metering modes and talk about exposure. No put your dirty minds back away it’s not that kind of exposure. If your lucky you’ll get to see us turn a picture of a glass of milk into a picture of orange juice right before your very eyes, with just the click of one button! Yes you guessed it. White Balance rears it’s ugly head and we’ll show you how to tame it once and for all.

You will need to bring your camera’s this week as the practical session returns after its week of rest and recuperation.

Newsletter

I’m in the process of revamping the newsletter. If your already on the mailing list you should of received a form asking you if your willing to receive and give feedback on the new format. If you haven’t agreed to that or aren’t sure I’d love you to fill it in and give permission. It won’t get you spammed by loads and loads of email rubbish. It’ll just mean you get the odd extra copy of the newsletter in a full HTML format. What do I mean by HTML. It just means that instead of getting the usual newsletter that is just text with links and headings in it. This new version will allow us to feature members photographs, posters for events that we’ve been asked to let you know about and have a good looking layout. It’s just like visiting a website but you get it sent to you via email. So please do give your permission so I can add you to the tester list. The more people that receive it and give their opinion the more likely it will be to have the content and look that will suit the majority of the club.

If you’ve deleted the email or your not actually a member of Reflex but would like to receive these test emails and continue to receive them once the new version goes live then you can sign up below.

Back in the Day

 

This was the club in 2008. Three years later we now have over 45 men & women that regularly come along to meetings. From 10 year old children to 60+ grandparents. They range in ability from some that have only just started to those that have been taking photographs for most of their lives.

I’ve been going through the club’s laptop to see what pictures are on it in case there is anything that I can use to blackmail club members. Unfortunately, for me, there isn’t but I have discovered some photographs from the 2008 prize giving and for the lottery funding which we successfully applied for in that year and if you’d like to see them just go here.

From Right to Left; Joe Scudamore; David Walters; Roy Williams; Kevin Spiers; Alec Williams; Steve Hallam; Pete Tomlinson; Rosie Tomlinson; Theresa Driscoll; Ian Coombs; Larry Whetton; Arthur Belton; and unfortunately I don’t know the names of the last two people.

From hot houses to wetlands

Well, Skomer failed for a second time thanks to the weather but that didn't deter 5 of us from getting out and about. Barrie, Rich, Kev, Simon and Me all set off to a Butterfly hot house in Swindon. After sweating it in the heat we went out the back to see the Otters and Mearcats. Cafe for lunch then where? Well the weather was supposed to get better so we decided to travel to Ham Wall in Somerset, only 70 miles up the road! High hopes to see lots of wild fowl........

I don't think they had been told the weather was going to improve as they were all hiding in the reeds. So after a stroll from one hide to the next we decided to call it a day. On the way back to the car we did catch glimpse of the illusive Bittern.

Quick refuel at the pub and off home. Enroute via Wells another spur of the moment stop to catch a bit of good sky and idea that will I'm sure raise a smile. Finally back home for a well earnt rest.

13 Weeks of Summer, Week 3

Well weeks 1 & 2 have gone and were up to week 3 of our 13 Weeks of Summer. This Thursday you can look forward to an evening of choices. Which Lens to choose, which focusing point to choose, which drink should you buy from the bar! ah well no not that one. It may seem like it’s only for those with dSLR’s but it’s not. If you use a point and shoot you need to make informed decisions. Do you walk closer to your subject or just zoom in. It does make a difference to your photograph, how? Well come along on Thursday and discover the ancient art of Zen and Lens Compression as told by Chairman Indiana Spiers.

The only other thing to say is WHERE IS YOUR HOMEWORK????? Forgot it again did you? Well if your not careful it’ll be detention for you. Please don’t forget to take a picture. We don’t care what it’s of. What size it is. Or any of the other usual things we ask you to do with it before you send it in. We’ll OK there is just one thing we want you to do and that’s put your name in the filename. Then just either Dropbox it, email it, or bring it in. We will need this picture for one of the coming weeks. So please take it and let us have it.

Red Hot Fun

Hanneke and I went a bit insane last night and went out with some of the Bristol Flickr Group to try out Light Painting and Wire wool spinning.

Wondering just how close my camera was to get this shot? Well if you visit this picture you can see my camera by the pillar on the left and the one on the right is Hanneke’s. Luckily for us they didn’t melt. Yes that was red hot metal flying around. I found out the hard way just how hot it was during this shot when a piece bounced off the pillar, straight through the gap and hit me on the top of my head. Good job I didn’t have enough hair for it to stick to!

So what do you think? Reckon we could do this in the Langton’s Car Park?!!!!!

13 Weeks of Summer

We started our "13 Weeks of Summer" tuition course last week and I'm glad to say it went amazingly well. Everyone I spoke to thought it was well explained and easy to follow. Which is good because this week we're going to be carrying on with the Exposure Triangle and delving deeper into Shutter Speed, Aperture and ISO. Don't worry though it's not going to get too heavy. The plan is to give a little talk on them with a few examples of how to combine all three to get the effect you want in your picture.Then for most of the evening we'll split into groups and you'll all be doing plenty of hands on practice.

So you can get the most out of this weeks session we'd love you to bring along your camera, it's instruction manual (if possible) and if you have one a Tripod. Even if you only have a small Gorillapod that's fine. I know not all of you will be able to bring tripods but we should be able to get by if we share the ones we do have.

Skomer 2011

The day started at Burger King in Bristol at 5 am. Kev, Rich, Ian, Simon and me all bleary eyed but eager. A three hour car journey in front of us to get to Martins Haven for the ferry to Skomer. First stop Haverfordwest at 07:30 for a McDonalds breakfast, egg and bacon Mcmuffin for me, TWO for Kevin FB. 30 minutes and a couple of wrong turns later and we arrived at Martins Haven. At this point we were all a bit scepticle as to whether the ferry would cross due to the high winds. The cloud was breaking and it looked like it was going to brighten up but the winds remained. The parking attendant assured us the ferry was still crossing so we grabbed our gear and set off to the ticket kiosk next to the cove. From here we could see the sea, and my god it was quite a swell. The pilot of the boat made his way to the beach past the queue and said he would go out and see what it was like first before he took anyone. Once enough tickets were sold for the first boat full (40) they stopped until we heard from the pilot. Whilst waiting in the howling wind we watched while the sea came rolloing in. Then it clouded over once more and the rain started. What on earth were we thinking of? We continues to watch as the boat pulled out of the sheltered cove, up over the rollers and the bow smacking down in the following trough. We were all looking at each other not saying a word, we didn't have to. The boat disappeared around the headland and we waited. 10 minutes later over the crackle of the radio we the the words we had at first been dreading but were probably quite relieved to to hear, "No go, getting battered by a force 6 here".

That was that. Back up to car and on to plan B. What was plan B. Oh we didn't have one, bugger.

Ok back to Haverfordwest Information centre pick up some leaflets and back to Mcdonalds to discuss. With more caffiene inside us we decided to head for llanelli to the Wild fowl and wetlands trust there. We arrived there at about midday and walked the entire site. Plenty of bird shots were taken with Damselflies and lizards to boot. Ian may well have been converted, as self confessed Damdelfly hater, he thoroughly enjoyed the challenge of getting a good Damselfly shot. After doing the wild bird section where we shot Damselflies and lizards because the birds were just too easy we went on to the captive section. Here the birds are much more challenging so we concentrated on this (honest). By the time we finished here it was about 5PM and general concensus was that it wasn't bad but not as good as Slimbridge.

From here we felt perhaps a visit to Ogmore-on-sea was in order to maybe get some beach and sky shots. Arrived here about 6PM and the tide was in, so not much beach there. Not our day. Never the less we still got down onto the little bit of beach and hpefully got some useable shots.

After this it was around 7PM and we were all knackered so felt it was time to head home. Back to Burger King for about 8 ish.

Even though we were up at 5am, had a 3 hour journey, got soaked waiting a a queue, to then drive back to a wetlands centre that wasn't as good as one we could have gone to 30 minutes from home and then go to get some beach shots when the tide was in. We still enjoyed ourselves. It was a day when things were just against us, but we made the best of it and visited places we normally wouldn't have. In the process we enjoyed ourselves had a laugh and Simon was able to catch up on his sleep in the car.

Reflex Awards

All year you’ve been entering our Open Competition. You’ve taken pictures, edited & printed until your fingers bled and now you get to find out who the winners are!

Congratulations to everyone that won and thanks to all of you that took part. This years competition was pretty close and the standard of entries was superb. So start snapping away to get your pictures ready for next season. It’s sure to be hotly contended again.

As usual names that are underlined in yellow are links that take you to that person’s Flickr pages.

 

	Photographer of the Year or, “who can look the most like a rabbit in the headlights” goes to Ian Coombs Congratulations and next year were banning Lumix camera’s & JPG’s!
Novice of the Year Goes to Simon Xu (pictured) and Louise Iddon Congratulations to both of you.
	Stan Scantlebury Shield (Best DPI of the Year) goes to Alison Davies For her picture Unbroken Gaze
John Hankin Shield (Best Print of the Year) goes to Arthur Belton for his print Lily
	Print Photographer of the Year goes to Ian Coombs
Digital Projected Image Photographer of the Year goes to Mark Stone

If you didn’t enter then please consider having a go next time. You’ve seen what everyone else can do and it’s a sure bet that your pictures are just as good. So come on If you don’t try you’ll never know if you could win or not.

And the Winners are……

This Thursday is our Annual Social & Prize Giving evening. We get to have a few drinks, embarrass ourselves at Skittles and mingle with all the friends we’ve made at the club. It’s a great night and you should definitely come along. If it’s not really your thing, still come along. You’ll be made to feel more than welcome and I’m sure you’ll have a great time. As well as the Social side of it we’ll also be announcing the winners of our Annual Open Competition.

You get to find out who has won Photographer of the Year, Best Digital Photographer and Best Print Photographer. Not forgetting for the first time in Several years we have brought back our Best Novice Photographer award. Don’t forget we also have to give Arthur & Alison their Trophies for winning the Stan Scantlebury & John Hankin Shield Competitions.

So if you’ve been desperate to know whose won or think you need to clear a bit of space on a shelf for one or two of the trophies, make sure to come along on Thursday and enjoy our very own award’s show.

How would you have done it?

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised last night. That has to be one of the most well attended AGM’s we’ve ever had! Now come on admit it. You lot didn’t realise it was the AGM and that’s why you turned up! But it was great to see so many of you and even better that you actually made suggestions, asked questions and put across your views on the running of the club. So on behalf of the Committee I’d like to thank all of you for being there and making this last season one of the best ones we’ve had in ages.

OK so now I have a question for you. Feel free to email me your thoughts on it or drag me to one side at a meeting. It’s a very simple question, nothing too taxing for a Friday. All I want to know is…..

Would you have changed anything we’ve done over the last season?

It’s not a trick question. We’re not going to come around to your house with baseball bats if you didn’t like something. We honestly want to know if you would have done anything differently to how it happened. I’m not just talking about at meetings, if you think this Blog needs to be written differently, the email needs to change or Hanneke needs to stop obsessing about chocolate. Anything at all, no matter how big or how small, tell us. You don’t have to come up with a solution to it, although that would be great, just let us know what it was that you would have changed. So if you didn’t like something but aren’t sure what would be better that’s fine. It might take us a while longer to figure out a new way to do it but we’ll have a go.

Thanks Arthur

Last night Arthur Belton performed his last official duties as Programme Secretary. He’s been doing that job for at least the last 10 years! Every season he’s faithfully negotiated dates with speakers and wrestled with the need to keep the programme varied and interesting to everyone. I’m coming up to the end of my second season at the club and during that time I can honestly say there has only been 3 speakers that I didn’t like any of their work or subject matter (yes 2 of them did involve trains).
So I hope you’ll all join me in thanking Arthur for his superb work in keeping us fickle folk entertained over the years and we hope you’ll enjoy all that extra free time your going to have now.

Arthurs retirement from the committee means that we now have a new Programme Secretary, Hanneke Ter Veen. She’s spent the last year learning the ropes from Arthur and we’re expecting a great season of fantastic speakers and wonderfully planned events. Not that we’d ever put her under any pressure of course, but we’re working on forfeits if a speaker fails to live up to expectations!

I’m getting there… eventually

 

I’m a bit late this week as this post should of been made on Friday but as the title says “I’m getting there..eventually”

Ann Cook FRPS, came along last Thursday and talked about the Art of Make Believe. It really was a fantastic evening of great Portraiture photography. Even better was Ann’s obvious enjoyment as she talked about her pictures. The talk was informative, entertaining and fun. How many times have you been sat at a club meeting wishing the speaker would just get on with it and talk about the pictures rather than the fact they were taken on their 25th trip to Africa and then get a 15 minute lecture on where Africa is in the world! Well you certainly don’t get that at one of Ann’s talks. I’ve never heard so much laughter or seen such obvious enjoyment on the faces of everyone attending. It was great to get a speaker that captivated their audience. It’s also the first time I’ve known that I have been looking at pictures taken with continuous lighting and I was impressed by the results. It also helped that Ann was obviously a master at using her equipment.

I’d like to thank Ann for such a wonderful evening and tell the rest of the world if you want an enjoyable, entertaining and fun evening full of anecdotes and wonderful photography , go along to one of her presentations. You won’t regret it.

John Hankin & Stan Scantlebury Shield Results

A.K.A. That’s a bloody good picture!

Last Thursday we had the pleasure of meeting David Southwell for the second time when he judged our Best Print and Best Projected Images of the year competition. His style of judging was superb instead of just describing what was in the picture (we can all see what it is so why do judges do that?) he actually went into great detail about what he saw when he looked at each photograph. Not just “that’s a nice picture” but why he thought it was good. He talked about how his eye travelled around the composition and if it seemed to get caught on any of the detail within the frame. It was probably one of the best explained and detailed bits of judging we’ve had for quite some time. So on behalf of all of us at Reflex I’d like to thank David for doing a superb job.

The winner of the Stand Scantlebury Shield wasn’t present, so she got sent a text message. Her reply was

“Oh my God! You poor proper photographers and to think I don’t know an F stop from a bus stop”

To get our own back we’re going to make her organise every social event for the next 20 years!

Now onto the reason you’re here. The photographs that have won our John Hankin & Stan Scantlebury Shield’s. As you, hopefully, know these are for the Best Print and Best Digital Projected Image taken by a club member this season. Only pictures that had been entered into a previous round of this season’s open competition (including the Trio)  were eligible and I’m glad to say we saw some superb Images.

Congratulations to the winners and a huge thank you to everyone that’s entered picture’s into this year’s Open Competition. You should all be proud of the images you’ve created.

John Hankin Shield (Best Print of the Year)	Stan Scantlebury Shield (Best DPI of the Year)
Winner Lily by Arthur Belton(Previously entered: Round 2, Print)	Winner Unbroken Gaze by Alison Davies(Previously entered: Round 4, DPI)
2nd: Leopard by Barrie Tovey  (Previously entered: Round 3, Print)	2nd: Kilve by Adrian Cook (Previously entered: Round 2, DPI)
3rd: Hats & Tails by Ian Coombs (Previously entered: Trio, Print)	3rd: Liverpool Waterfront by Adrian Cook(Previously entered: Round 3, DPI)
HC: The Mating Game by Joe Scudamore (Previously entered: Trio, Print)	HC: Patterns in Glass by Roy Williams (Previously entered: Trio, DPI)
HC: Charlotte by Ian Coombs(Previously entered: Trio, Print)	HC: Horned Frog by Mark Stone (Previously entered: Round 3, DPI)
	HC: Waiting by Ian Coombs (Previously entered: Round 2, DPI)
	HC: The Eye by Mark Stone (Previously entered: Trio, DPI)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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